Technology, Culture, and Ethics

What I Might Have Written About If I Had More Time

Some blogs have a regular post each week (sometimes cleverly titled, unlike mine) in which they list a bunch of links that they think readers might enjoy visiting. Without being regular about it, I have in the past put up similar posts, and now may be good time to revisit the format. So here are some items that, had I more time, may have generated something more than passing reference, but, as it stands …

At the New York Times, Maureen Dowd considers the Catholic Church’s efforts to minister through the Internet in “Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Linked”. Here’s her clever (depending on your mood) rendition of the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in pixels,linked be Thy name,Thy Web site come, Thy Net be done,on Explorer as it is on Firefox.Give us this day our daily app,and forgive us our spam,as we forgive those who spam against us, and lead us not into aggregation,but deliver us from e-vil. Amen.

In The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik has a long review essay of 2010 books that addressed the impact of the Internet on our thinking including, of course, Nick Carr’s The Shallows and Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus.

Two pieces that will either excite you or depress you depending on your disposition: